who are the wealthy? not the mega rich, but average well off?

[SheilaT]

3. I often point out that in our culture we are surrounded by messages that tell us to buy.

It's not just the advertizements on TV or in magazines, but more subtly and in my opinion, more destructively in the way TV and movies present supposedly ordinary people. Often they are shown as living in homes or apartments that someone in their job could not possibly afford. Or they own clothing and shoes (the women here) that again they could not possibly afford.

So it's very easy to become discontent, to wonder why you can't live in the kind of nice place you see your favorite TV character living in. You never see anything that implies a little delayed gratification can be a good thing.

I am semi well off because while I was married, my in-laws gifted me (and husband and children) every year with money. We never treated that money as regular income, but saved and invested it. A lot of people would have happily used that money to finance a bigger home, a fancier car, more luxurious vacations. We didn't.

Today, I do not have a million dollars, but I have enough, since I'm used to living frugally, that I could retire earlier this year. I'm not even collecting Social Security yet (I'm 66) and I'm okay.

I don't consider myself wealthy, because my income isn't all that high, but in a way I'm wealthy because I do not have to work. If I had, say, five million dollars that I could live off of, then I would consider myself wealthy because at that point my income would be significantly higher than it has ever been.